Split things into two parts, the optical drive and disc replication.
Optical Drive: Should be fairly easy to mass produce because it uses optics similar to a standard Blu-Ray. GE probably won't make much from this domain if anything at all. So in the area there shouldn't be much of a problem.
Disc Replication: I haven't got a clue and GE probably doesn't won't give away much. In this area GE would be in direct competion with Sony. If Microsoft goes with holographic disc, this is where GE would have to deliever as ERP stated. Cheap mass production of GE Holographic ROMs...maybe it can't be done...I don't know.
Another issue could be the expected new Blu-Ray format for 4k content. Maybe GE and other companies desire to keep quiet for whatever reason. Last time around with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD it turned into a total circus.
It's about volume, they can't have it without major industry backing, which they don't have. The circus you speak of is created by warmongers. Nobody wants a format war except you-know-who. The way I see it, I think GE is fishing for a piece of the pie (getting included in the bluray format evolution), or looking for companies with an interest in creating a dubious format war. Either way it's not looking good, rumors has it that the warmongers have chosen bluray, and they were the only ones around with enough money and business interests to start a war. If their technology can be placed profitably into the bluray roadmap, that's great, it's just that it's promised next year for the last 48 years (yep, it's not a typo). It's the running gag of the optical storage industry.
They're not in competition with Sony, they're in competition with the whole bluray forum, which is almost every company, but considering they use almost all of bluray technologies they'll have to pay everybody anyway for the patent pool, it's just simpler to be included in the forum... if they can deliver they'll want it. It's an illusion that it's a different technology, it's a blu ray drive, with all the blu ray technologies, and a modified read head. It's only incremental to bluray. But they didn't deliver yet.
There's no 10x advantage, it's smoke and mirrors. Bluray already demoed a 1TB prototype in 2010, readable by current drives with a modified firmware, and the most recent Holo prototype is 500GB.
I don't know what they decided for 4K but it'll be out by the end of the year or early next year, it's a short time for new tech and new production lines. If 50GB on a 54Mb/s mux is enough for 3D-1080p, 128GB is more than enough for 4K even with h264, and would be superb in h265. The mux bandwidth will be fine and needs less than twice the bitrate in both cases. Current bluray specs is 128GB on 4 layers, 100GB on 3 layers. There's zero risk, no new technology, no added cost. It's the same drive, same disk stamping and gluing. New ASIC for 4k output and h264/h265 decoding and you're set. There won't be a format war since 4k will remain a niche anyway for a long time, there's no profit here that can justify a new contender... unless the goal is to kill both formats of course... rings any bell?
Here's the IEEE conference about optical media technology 2012,
it's pure gold, everything we want to know is there, and the source is the highest authority you could ever dream of.
http://www.slideshare.net/rgzech/the...ch-slide-share
Low cost, low risk, near term evolution of Bluray format on slide #15: NFR+MLD+MLR = 500GB per layer
With a 16 layer it would be 8TB. Linear data density 5 times higher, data rate is 5 times higher.
2.5 bits multi-level is already possible with 6 layers, with only a little more electronics and firmware.
i-MLSE already gives us another 33% increase of both data rate and density (from BDXL).
What's wrong with regular bluray discs? It's not as if terribly many games are going to crack the 50GB ceiling even next gen. ...And if it was, just adding two more layers is not terribly complicated, methods for doing that have existed for years and don't need any additional hardware.
